According to bombshell figures released by the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office, a staggering 70% of those entering the Spanish capital’s child protection system as unaccompanied migrant minors are not minors at all.
In 2024, the Community of Madrid registered 470 archived files, 112 determinations of minority age, and 266 determinations of legal adulthood. In other words, among those who completed the test, seven out of ten turned out to be adults. The previous year, the number had been 88. The figure is not growing; it is exploding.
The Prosecutor’s Office adds another important data: of the 1,937 unaccompanied migrant minors (or unaccompanied alien children, UACs) registered in Madrid in 2024, 1,110 arrived through Barajas airport, mainly on flights from Casablanca and Egypt. The result was, in the words of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, a “real collapse” of airport infrastructure, first-reception resources, and the healthcare system, with delays of up to eight months in issuing radiological reports. Not to mention the obvious question: how does an alleged minor arrive by air if non-adults cannot fly unaccompanied?
The problem is not limited to Madrid. At the national level, Spain’s State Prosecutor General’s Office registered a total of 7,562 age-determination proceedings in 2024. Of those processed, 2,457 ended with a finding of legal adulthood, 3,825 with a finding of minority age or possible minority age, and 1,280 remained unresolved because the person left the centre before the proceedings could be carried out. The national percentage of adults among resolved cases is therefore around 39%. Madrid doubles that warning signal.
The historical series explains by itself why the current system is unable to respond to the problem. Spain had 11,417 unaccompanied foreign minors registered in 2022. That figure rose to 12,878 in 2023 and closed 2024 at 16,041, according to the Register of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors. In two years, the increase was 40.5%. In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office recorded 5,922 arrivals by sea in 2024, compared with 2,375 in 2022.
The official figures show that immigration is once again becoming a subsidised business. Not because protecting a real minor is questionable, but because the failure to identify people correctly feeds places, contracts, referrals and reception structures without effective entry controls.
A place in Madrid costs, according to contracts quoted by RTVE, €186 per day excluding VAT and €204.60 including VAT; in another agreement, €163.11 per day excluding VAT. That places the annual cost per place at between roughly €59,500 and €74,700.
There is no homogeneous national bill. But if that Madrid range were applied to the 16,041 registered in 2024, the theoretical volume would range between €955 million and €1.198 billion.
The system was created to protect minors. But when adults enter through that route, the damage is doubled: resources intended for real children are emptied, and administrative fraud is rewarded.
